Alex's Very Cool Blog

  The representation of LGBT people in popular media has taken massive strides in recent years. With shows like Steven Universe and The Owl House , even young kids are seeing positive appearances of queer folks in the media, something unthinkable even a few decades ago. However, there is one aspect of this effort that is faltering heavily: the showcasing of transgender people and actors. Trans women especially often face challenges that their cis counterparts do not. With the refusal to offer them “cis” roles and the lack of writing about trans stories, trans women are faced with a high barrier of entry into the acting industry.  The main problem facing trans women in media is that they are only cast for trans roles. This is due to a strong sense of tokenism in relation to trans characters. If we have a side character who is black, white, male, or female, there would be no, or very little change to how they are written or perceived based on who acts as them. A character being...

As a gender-fluid person, this question is a hard one to respond to. How am I meant to dissect my gender if I barely know what it is, or if it shifts daily? But when reading the prompt a little closer, I'm intrigued with a specific  choice of wording: ‘ what “gender” you are or are perceived t o be?’ Unlike my gender, my perceived gender is very static and very carefully constructed. As a result, m y perceived gender is forged through a compromise between my constantly morphing gender identity, societal pressures placed upon me, and my upbringing as a white American.   M y gender identity is a large part of how I choose to present myself . This might be curious, as I just said that my gender identity is fluid, but it is exactly that fluidity that has inf luenced a large part of how I present. As my gender is constantly at war with itself, I often avoid any clothes that gender themselves too harshly. As a result, I often draw outfit inspiration from places w...

When reading through “’Night to his Day’: The Social construction of Gender” by Judith Lorber, I was struck by some very choice language. When she referred to transvestites ( an outdated term meant to describe transgender people who d on’t undergo bottom surgery )   she described them as “ Males who live as women.” Yikes. It would, however, be disingenuous to say that it surprised me. It was written in the 90s, after all. But even in the modern day, the language around transgender wo me n is increasingly problematic.   At some point, e very transgender girl has been asked the following: “Well if you started as a boy, and now you’re a girl, are you a transgender man or woman?” Ignoring how obviously absurd this question is, it shows the thought process of our society. Transgender women are not men . A ll but the most conservative people accept thi s as a fact. However, it would be disingenuous to say that most Americans believe that Transgender women are women. We ...